Before Elvis Presley became one of the most famous entertainers in the world, he was a broke Memphis teenager working inside a movie theater.
Elvis reportedly worked as an usher, guiding customers to their seats with a flashlight. The job did not last long. After only about five weeks, he was fired following a fight with another usher, reportedly involving a girl who had taken an interest in Elvis.
At the time, it probably looked like nothing more than another teenage job gone wrong.
Years later, the story came full circle.
After Elvis became a movie star himself, his first film premiered at the same theater where he had once worked and been fired. The name of that theatre was “Loew’s State Theater.” The teenager who used to show strangers to their seats was now the man people were lining up to see on the screen.
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But Elvis’ relationship with movie theaters became even stranger after fame took over his life.
By 1956, he was only 21 and becoming one of the most recognizable people in America. Simply buying a ticket and sitting among a normal audience was becoming almost impossible.
His friend Jerry Schilling later recalled that once Elvis became famous, he could no longer casually go to the movies. Elvis understood the problem himself. During a 1957 press conference in Canada, he explained: “Anybody that’s in the public eye, their life is never private.”
So Elvis found another way.
In Memphis, he began renting the Memphian Theatre after regular customers had gone home. Around 1 a.m., Elvis and his friends could finally walk inside without causing a scene. They watched everything from new releases and old films to karate movies, sometimes sitting through several films in one night.
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The same pattern followed Elvis outside the cinema.
He rented roller-skating rinks after closing and spent nights skating with friends while eating hot dogs and drinking Pepsi. He also rented the Memphis fairgrounds amusement park so his group could ride the attractions without crowds surrounding him. One of his favorites was the wooden Zippin Pippin roller coaster.
Even shopping sometimes had to happen after everyone else had gone home. Goldsmith’s department store reportedly opened privately so Elvis and Priscilla could shop for Christmas gifts without attracting a crowd.
In Los Angeles, Elvis sometimes tried another trick. His group would save seats near the back of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and Elvis would enter only after the lights went down, hoping darkness would keep people from noticing him.
One story involving Linda Thompson showed just how strange his fame had become. When someone asked whether he really was Elvis Presley, Elvis admitted that he was. Linda jokingly called him “Charlie” and acted as though he was simply a man who enjoyed pretending to be Elvis.
The strangers believed her.
For a brief moment, one of the most recognizable men in the world was standing in a movie theater trying to convince people that he really was Elvis Presley.
That may be the strangest part of the entire story.
As a teenager, Elvis had been paid to stand inside a theater and help ordinary people enjoy a movie. After becoming Elvis Presley, ordinary life became something he had to arrange in secret.
The kid who once showed people to their seats eventually became the attraction on the screen, then became so famous that he had to wait until everyone else went home just to sit down and watch a movie himself.